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Domenico Ghirlandaio
(1449-1494)
Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi called Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 Florence ¨C 1494 Florence) was one of the most popular Florentine artists of his time. His father, Tommaso di Curradi Bigordi, had a business with jewellery, and Domenico started as a goldsmith. His nickname of Ghirlandaio, i. e. the "Garland-maker", came from his speciality, namely, the manufacture of silver or gold crowns or diadems, popular with young women of Florence.
In the 1460s thanks to the patronage of the Vespucci family, Ghirlandaio started to work independently. For his patrons he produced various works in the church of Ognissanti, Florence, including The Last Supper fresco in the refectory of Ognissanti painted in 1480.
In 1475 he worked in San Gimignano; he painted the frescos of The Life of St. Fina in the Collegiate Church, which were still archaic in their style. But already in his Roman works in 1481-82 for the Sistine Chapel he showed himself as a watchful artist with a tranquil and even temperament, capable of organizing complicated compositions with many well arranged figures. He worked together with Botticelli, Perugino and Rosselli and painted two frescos The Calling of St. Peter and The Resurrection (now destroyed).
The prestige of this job led to many commissions on his return to Florence including the decoration of the Sala dei Gigli in Palazzo Vecchio (1483), frescos and an altarpiece for the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinit¨¤ (1483-1485). Ghirlandaio decorated with 6 frescos the private chapel of the Sassetti family with the Scenes from the Life of St. Francis, the patron saint of the banker Francesco Sassetti, who commissioned the work.
The decoration of the Sassetti Chapel consisted not just of the cycle of frescos, but also of an altarpiece showing the Adoration of the Shepherds. Some details, such as figure arrangements, point to a Dutch influence, namely to Hugo van der Goes, whose Portinari Altar Ghirlandaio highly admired.
In the late 1480s, Ghirlandaio painted a number of interesting portraits, the most remarkable of which is Old Man with a Young Boy. This panel occupies a special position in Florentine portraiture of the Early Renaissance. Never before in the name of realism had such careful attention been paid to ugly, even disfiguring detail.
The Last Supper fresco in the refectory of Ognissanti painted in 1480, a subject he used again in San Marco, was important in the way Ghirlandaio succeeded in bringing actual architecture into the scene. His creativity reached its culmination with his work in the Tornabuoni Chapel of Santa Maria Novella (1485-1490). The work was commissioned by Giovanni Tornabuoni, a partner in the Medici bank. The fifteen frescoes of the Li.... |
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